Earlier this morning, Mannheim Regional Court in Germany granted Motorola a sales injunction against Microsoft's Xbox 360, Windows 7, Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player. It's no more a question of "if", but "when" the judgement will be enforced. When that happens, Motorola can insist on pulling those products off the German market. Motorola holds two technology patents this case is built around: EP0538667 and EP0615384, which are key to getting the H.264 video compression format to work. Motorola is obliged to license these patents to other under "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms, however, it demanded royalties from Microsoft that would amount to an excess of US $4 billion annually. Microsoft did not accept Motorola's terms, and knocked the doors of regulators claiming Motorola was being unfair and unreasonable with its patents. A case of patent infringement by Motorola is pending against Microsoft, but it is held up as authorities in the US are yet to ascertain Microsoft's allegations (of Motorola being anti-competitive).

The way I see it, the Xbox 360, Windows 7, IE (they didn’t specify version) and WMP (they left out Microsoft Media Center which definitely has AVC / H.264 / MPEG4 support) can all probably have the AVC / H.264 / MPEG4 support removed. If Microsoft makes an effort to remove said support from these products while leaving users the means to self install it then I see no need for ongoing fees. Microsoft can then pay some one time penalty and be done with it.

Removing the support would be a b!tc# though,….

Maybe this is part of the reason why Microsoft Media Center will be a paid add on for Windows 8.

The way I see it, the Xbox 360, Windows 7, IE (they didn’t specify version) and WMP (they left out Microsoft Media Center which definitely has AVC / H.264 / MPEG4 support) can all probably have the AVC / H.264 / MPEG4 support removed. If Microsoft makes an effort to remove said support from these products while leaving users the means to self install it then I see no need for ongoing fees. Microsoft can then pay some one time penalty and be done with it.

Removing the support would be a b!tc# though,….

Maybe this is part of the reason why Microsoft Media Center will be a paid add on for Windows 8.

So when people do start paying for add ons that were free in the earlier versions, should they be angry with with Microsoft or Motorola/Google?

This feels like Microsoft vs the anti virus software vendors pertaining to its plan to use Windows Defender. Microsoft is scorned for the lack of security in the earlier Windows and yet they are also scorned for trying to get full control of security.

Really this patent trolling needs to stop. I used to live in a world were my kids would be playing the PS 8 and 48 core CPUs in 256bit. Now it seems that with all this stepping on eggshells innovation is going to get sandbagged bad. I totally understand intilectual property and creative thinking etc. but really they should make clearer/universally standardized royalty laws so that these companys can continue doing what the consumer base pays them to do.

Really this patent trolling needs to stop. I used to live in a world were my kids would be playing the PS 8 and 48 core CPUs in 256bit. Now it seems that with all this stepping on eggshells innovation is going to get sandbagged bad. I totally understand intilectual property and creative thinking etc. but really they should make clearer/universally standardized royalty laws so that these companys can continue doing what the consumer base pays them to do.

This kinda fighting is nothing new man. Its just in the media more as the "winnings" are far higher then they were in the past due to high profit margins. I mean in the early 80's its not like EVERYONE had a computer so any patent infringement would have been in the 100 thousands maybe a few million tops. There were TONS of this fighting back then. Now since tech is so tightly knit into our lives and mesh together a small patent can go into the billions like in this case. Combine that with a slumping economy and you get top news stories in the media about billion dollar patent infringements.

Really this patent trolling needs to stop. I used to live in a world were my kids would be playing the PS 8 and 48 core CPUs in 256bit. Now it seems that with all this stepping on eggshells innovation is going to get sandbagged bad. I totally understand intilectual property and creative thinking etc. but really they should make clearer/universally standardized royalty laws so that these companys can continue doing what the consumer base pays them to do.

Apple forced Adobe to drop Flash in favor of HTML 5 which supports H.264. Google is in the process of acquiring Motorola, owner of those two patents concerning H.264. Apple and Google both big supporters of HTML5.

Why do I have the feeling that Apple and Google are the ultimate villains? They looked like they are competing each other but I view them as secret partners who maintain huge chunks of consumers respectively to ensure that neither of them will be accused of dominance or invoke anti-trust investigations. Apple will let Google have half of the empire as long as its Android kept the competitors in check, fragmented. The perfect crime?

Apple forced Adobe to drop Flash in favor of HTML 5 which supports H.264. Google is in the process of acquiring Motorola, owner of those two patents concerning H.264. Apple and Google both big supporters of HTML5.

Why do I have the feeling that Apple and Google are the ultimate villains? They looked like they are competing each other but I view them as secret partners who maintain huge chunks of consumers respectively to ensure that neither of them will be accused of dominance or invoke anti-trust investigations. Apple will let Google have half of the empire as long as its Android kept the competitors in check, fragmented. The perfect crime?

Apple simply doesn’t support Adobe Flash in its iOS devices. Flash works fine in Apple’s OS X operating system. Adobe wasn’t forced to drop flash and as far as I know flash is still updated. I do recall hearing something about mobile versions of Flash no longer being updated or “dropped” but this issue wasn’t forced.

Having said that, I’ve found Adobe Flash and PDF reader to be something of a security risk and I am rethinking their place on my Windows 7 systems and OS X systems. Sure one can try and keep them updated but it might be better to just avoid them altogether,….

Apple simply doesn’t support Adobe Flash in its iOS devices. Flash works fine in Apple’s OS X operating system. Adobe wasn’t forced to drop flash and as far as I know flash is still updated. I do recall hearing something about mobile versions of Flash no longer being updated or “dropped” but this issue wasn’t forced.

Having said that, I’ve found Adobe Flash and PDF reader to be something of a security risk and I am rethinking their place on my Windows 7 systems and OS X systems. Sure one can try and keep them updated but it might be better to just avoid them altogether,….

Motorola cannot act on the ban immediately as long as a US case is still unresolved. That means that if the US case is deemed the same way then the ban will be effective....until then Microsoft will be able to do its business.